XLII. "Subject: A Correction, Issued Formally and With Great Sincerity".

To Whom It May Concern,

I write to issue a formal retraction of my life's central thesis.

For what can only be described as an unreasonable and, in retrospect, frankly embarrassing number of years, I have conducted a tireless campaign across poems and conversations in pursuit of a single dream: to be truly known by a romantic partner.

To be seen. Witnessed. Held, spiritually speaking, in the warm, well-lit vestibule of someone else's complete and unconditional understanding.

I would now like to withdraw this dream, effective immediately, and replace it with something more realistic, such as being admired at a safe and tasteful distance.

Because I have done the math, and "truly known" is, on inspection, an expansive category.

It admits of everything.

The full archive.

The items that were never meant to circulate outside a very limited internal readership.

For instance: the private catalogue of grievances I have maintained since approximately the fifth grade. It is cross-referenced, periodically updated, and not intended for resolution. These grievances are not even particularly accurate. They function as an emotional pantry: shelf-stable, occasionally replenished, and accessed whenever I require the immediate experience of being correct about something that does not matter.

It includes my relationship with beans.

All beans.

I continue to consume them in quantities that would concern a reasonable observer.

I regard all objections as failures of imagination.

It includes the way I conduct myself in conversation. For extended periods, I am composed to the point of near-absence: agreeable, attentive, calmly giving the impression that I may possess hidden depths. Then someone mentions the correct topic and I become suddenly, disproportionately articulate. The room must recalibrate. I do not assist in this recalibration.

Under partial observation, this reads as intrigue.

Under full, as instability.

This, I think, is the central issue.

To be known is not merely to be seen; it is to be assembled. To have one's various and largely incompatible elements arranged into something resembling coherence, at which point questions begin to arise. Not hostile questions. Reasonable ones.

Questions of continuity. Of whether the person in front of you can be relied upon to behave as a single, continuous entity from one moment to the next.

I cannot. I do not see why I should have to.

What I want, and I say this with a level of self-awareness that should count for something, is to be loved under conditions of carefully managed ignorance.

Not total ignorance. That would be alienating.

But a precise and curated degree of not-knowing.

The knowledge accumulated over a successful dinner party.

During a walk that does not go on too long.

Over several weeks of correspondence

in which every sentence has been revised before release.

This is the correct amount.

To be exact: I want someone to love the version of me that exists within the first three months. She is a limited-run collaboration between my actual personality and my best available instincts for public relations. She is not false, merely edited for clarity and audience retention.

She does not, as a rule, mention the beans.

She should be regarded as definitive.

Thus: I am withdrawing the request.

I no longer believe that total understanding is a prerequisite for love. I am beginning to suspect it may be actively incompatible with it.

Know me a little. Find it enchanting.

And then—this is important—do not press further.

There is no bottom. There are only additional layers, each of which will complicate your initial impression in ways that are, frankly, unnecessary.

Let what you see be sufficient.

It is, I believe, the only sustainable model currently available to me.

With great sincerity, and a degree of self-knowledge that I intend to treat as purely ornamental,

-Charlene Iris

One thought at a time.

One truth at a time. 

Because some epiphanies stay with you.